Herbs

To be happy they want your whole garden - nothing is too much for the members of mint family.

 

For the bigger mints, e.g. Apple mint, spearmint, I use a 40l trug. Basically, one of my weeding trugs, when the handles snap (as they eventually do). Cut the handles level with the rest of the rim, with a Stanley knife, drill some good drainage holes - but only in the bottom!! Fill with garden soil/garden compost mix, and sink into the garden, leaving the rim standing about 1" proud of the soil. This will help you spot the escape artists!!
For the more delicate mints, e.g. Chocolate mint, pineapple mint (the yellow-and-green hairless version, not the white-and green apple-thug version!), I use a large flowerpot -maybe 5 litre size?, similarly sunk into the ground. The only problem is that if you restrain the roots, they can get hungry, and can dry out in hot weather, so need to keep an eye on them...

 

Sorry, @Fat Controller, I realise that burying the pot/planter is difficult, but the risk is the roots "cook", so grouping the pots together helps...

 

Thyme is very easy to grow. I don't it around my garden opportunistically in any spare gaps. Once it gets going you can divide it up and create more plants. I have many different varieties. My two favourite for cooking are lemon thyme and broadleaf thyme. The lemon thyme needs cutting back hard to prevent it going woody. The broadleaf needs little maintenance and grows and spreads fast.

Get some rosemary plants in there too. Great for cooking. You can usually pick them up for £1 in the supermarket or bigger plants in the garden centres for not much money. Just give them a sunny well drained spot.

These are growing rapidly now in my garden. If you pick up some decent size plants you should get some good use out of them over the summer. Really easy herbs to grow and very useful in the garden.

Marjoram is another herb I find grows rapidly and requires no maintenance.